The present invention relates to a novel cholesterol oxidase having a high substrate affinity and the working pH in an acidic range.
Cholesterol oxidase is an enzyme which catalyzes the reaction of oxidizing cholesterol (5-cholesten-3-.beta.-ol) as substrate into 4-cholesten-3-one and hydrogen peroxide. The enzyme is used in a clinical test for quantitative determination of cholesterol in blood, etc.
It is known that cholesterol oxidase has been produced by a microorganism belonging to the genus Schizophyrum, Streptoverticillium, Brevibacterium or Streptomyces in an industrial scale. However, it has been pointed out that a known cholesterol oxidase used for quantitative determination of cholesterol in blood has a low substrate affinity. Hence, there is a problem in quantitative determination accuracy where a sample solution having a low cholesterol content is analyzed and where a diluted sample solution is assayed. It has been further pointed out that the working pH range for the activity of known enzymes is relatively narrow so that when pH of a sample is set in an acidic range, for example at around 6, in order to avoid an influence by other components such as bilirubin, the enzyme activity is lowered. In addition, productivity of the aforementioned cholesterol oxidase-producing microorganisms is extremely low and multiple procedures for purification of enzymes are requried to remove protein impurities.
Therefore, it has been desired to develop a cholesterol oxidase having a high substrate affinity and a wide working pH range as well as a microorganism capable of producing cholesterol oxidase in high productivity without contamination with protein impurities.
As a result of extensive studies in cholestrol oxidases, it has now been found that a novel cholesterol oxidase having a high substrate affinity and a wide working pH in an acidic range can be produced in good yield, by culturing a microorganism which is constructed by the steps of: isolating, from a strain belonging to the genus Brevibacterium, a DNA fragment bearing genetic information involved in the production of a different isoenzyme in the substrate affinity, working pH range and isoelectric point from known cholesterol oxidase, inserting the DNA fragment into a vector DNA to prepare a recombinant DNA containing the DNA fragment, introducing the recombinant DNA into a microorganism belonging to the genus Escherichia. The present invention has thus been accomplished.